A Companion to the Horror Film

This cutting–edge collection contains more than 30 original essays on one of cinema’s most dynamic and enduringly popular genres. With contributions by many of the best–known scholars of film horror, A Companion to the Horror Film offers a critical survey of the art and practice of horror movies covering everything from craft and technique, historical developments, and modern–day trends, to broader topics opening onto the socio–political dimensions of the genre. The volume begins with essays devoted to the theoretical methodologies used to study the genre, from cognitive and philosophical approaches, through audience reception and psychoanalysis, to those approaches that examine gender, sexuality, race, class, and (dis)ability in relation to the horror film. Subsequent sections cover horror film aesthetics, the history of the genre, and specific subjects including distribution and the relationship between horror, art house movies, and the documentary impulse. Combining wide–ranging analysis with nuanced commentary, A Companion to the Horror Film synthesizes key concepts related to the genre and presents original research reflecting the latest trends in horror film scholarship.  It speaks to fan and scholar alike and will deepen the appreciation of those well–versed in horror film as well as newcomers to the subject.

Harry M. Benshoff:  Introduction Part One: Approaches and Contexts 1.  Cognitive and Philosophical Approaches to Horror by Aaron Smuts 2.  Horror and Psychoanalysis: An Introductory Primer by Chris Dumas 3.  Gender and Sexuality Haunts the Horror Film by Daniel Humphrey 4.  The Horror Film as Social Allegory (And How it Comes Undone) by Christopher Sharrett 5.  Avenging the Body: Disability in the Horror Film by Travis Sutton 6.  Horror Reception/Audiences by Matt Hills 7.  A’s, B’s, Quickies, Orphans, and Nasties: Horror Films in the Context of Distribution and Exhibition by Kevin Heffernan 8.  Horror and the Censors by Julian Petley Part Two: The Form of Horror 9.  Carl Dreyer’s Corpse: Horror Film Atmosphere and Narrative by Robert Spadoni 10.  Horror Sound Design by William Whittington 11.  Mellifluous Terror: The Discourse of Music and Horror Films by Joe Tompkins Part Three: A History of the (Western) Horror Film 12.  Horror Before “The Horror Film” by Harry Benshoff 13.  Classical Hollywood Horror by John Edgar Browning 14.  Horror in the 1940s by Mark Jancovich 15.  Science Fiction and Horror in the 1950s by Steffen Hantke 16.  The Gothic Revival (1957–1974) by Rick Worland  17.  International Horror in the 1970s by Peter Hutchings 18.  Slasher Films and Gore in the 1980s by James Kendrick 19.  Millennial Fears: Abject Horror in a Transnational Context by Adam Charles Hart 20.  Torture Porn: 21st Century Horror by Isabel C. Pinedo Part Four:  Selected International Horror Cinemas 21.  Spanish Horror Cinema by Ian Olney 22.  Italian Horror and the Mezzogiorno Giallo by Xavier Mendik 23.  Recent Trends in Japanese Horror Cinema by Jay McRoy 24.  South Korean Horror Cinema by Daniel Martin 25.  Sisterhood of Terror: The Monstrous Feminine of Southeast Asian Horror Cinema by Andrew Hock Soon Ng Part Five:  Selected Archetypes, Hybrids, and Crossovers 26.  Vampires and Transnational Horror by Dale Hudson 27.  Trash Horror and the Cult of the Bad Film by I. Q. Hunter 28.  “Moody Three:” Revisiting Ken Russell’s The Devils by Joan Hawkins 29.  Horror’s Otherness and Ethnographic Surrealism: The Case of The Shout by Adam Lowenstein 30.  The Documentary Impulse and Reel/Real Horror by Caroline Joan S. Picart

Harry M. Benshoff is Professor of Radio, TV, and Film at the University of North Texas, USA. His research interests include topics in film genre, film history, film theory, and multiculturalism. The author of several books on cinema, he is best known for work that explores sexuality in relation to the horror film, including Monsters in the Closet: Homosexuality and the Horror Film (1997).  He is also co–author of Queer Images: A History of Gay and Lesbian Film in America (2006), and America on Film: Representing Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality at the Movies, Second edition (Wiley Blackwell, 2009).